Extended-day program in planning for schools

By Staff
Clif Knight, Hartselle Enquirer
Plans are in the making to offer an extended-day program at Hartselle's three elementary schools next school year.
Crestline Principal Robin Varwig, Barkley Bridge Principal Susan Hayes and F.E. Burleson Principal Sherry Calvert have presented information on the plan to the school board.
"We discussed this among ourselves at length, did quite a bit of research and conducted a survey of parents before the end of the school year," Varwig said. "We had more than 200 responses with a potential enrollment of 295 students…120 at Crestline, 90 at Barkley Bridge and 85 at F.E. Burleson."
"I dragged my heels at first because I could only identify 15 to 20 students who I felt would be interested," Hayes said. "The survey proved me wrong.
"A variety of ways to use an extended day program was indicated on the survey forms that came back. They included remediation, homework assignments, fine arts and languages. We want to make good use of our facilities and we want the program to be more than stay and play."
The three examined several other extended day programs, Calvert said.
"Most of them operate from 2:45 to 5:45 p.m. and charge $7 to $15 per day," Calvert said. "We think we can offer it for $7 per day and $6 per day for each additional child in the same family. It's a great program and it's self-supporting. We'd like to offer a three or five-day program and have a summer registration with a fee of $25 per student. This would let us know how many people we'd need to staff the program."
Calvert said several of her teachers have indicated an interest in tutoring but not being in charge of the program.
The principals indicated they will complete the planning phase for the program and have it ready to present to the school board for consideration at its next meeting on July 17.